Milgram (Example of Research into Obedience)

Question 1

What is obedience?

Answer 1

Obedience is a form of social influence where an individual follows a direct order from a perceived authority figure. This implies that the person would not otherwise have responded in this way without the order

Question 2

What was Milgram’s aim?

Answer 2

To find out if ordinary people would obey unjust order from an authority figure

Question 3

What was Milgram’s procedure?

Answer 3

BEFORE THE STUDY: 40 male US PPs volunteered for a study of how punishment affects learning at Yale University
DURING:
- There were 2 confederates: an experimenter (authority figure) and a learner. The PP acted as a ‘teacher’ and was old that he must give increasingly strong electric shocks to learner whenever they made a mistake on the tasks
- The learner was sat in another rom and gave mainly wrong answers and received fake electric shocks starting at 15v and going up in 15v until they reached 450v
- if the teacher felt unsure about continuing, the experimenter used repeated verbal prods e.g. ‘please continue’

Question 4

What were Milgram’s findings and conclusions?

Answer 4

FINDINGS:
- 65% of PPs continued until the highest level of 450 volts
- The PPs showed signs of extreme tension e.g. sweating, trembling 3 PPs even passed out

CONCLUSION: Ordinary people will obey authorty even when they know what they’re doing is wrong

Question 5

How is internal validity a weakness?

Answer 5

• A weakness of Milgram’s research is that it may lack internal validity
• Orne and Holland argued that PPs were ‘going along with the act’ when giving electric shocks and didn’t really believe they were real
• This would mean PPs were displaying unnatural behaviour because they knew electric shocks weren’t real. Thus, unlike Milgram claimed, PPs weren’t actually obeying and instead showing demand characteristics and choosing to co-operate with the study
• This indicated Milgram wasn’t really measuring obedience as he intended to thus challenging the validity of the study and its conclusions

Question 6

How is ethics a weakness?

Answer 6

• A weakness of Milgram’s study is that it broke ethical guidelines
• Milgram deceived PPs on the true aim of the study as they were told it was investigating the effect of punishment on learning rather than obedience to authority
• This also means PPs couldnt’ provide fully informed consent before the experiment
• Also right to withdraw was violated as PPs were given verbal prompts to make them stay even when they wanted to stop the study
• Also, PPs were subjected to psychological harm as they were exposed to an extremely stressful situation
• These ethical issues reduce the credibility of Milgram’s research